Researchers visited Chicago Cafe to find out if it’s really 121 years old – and entered a chop suey parlor filled with memories
On a warm morning in March, a group of researchers entered an unassuming chop suey parlor in the Sacramento suburbs for a rare field trip.
The six history enthusiasts affiliated with the University of California, Davis, had gathered at the Chicago Cafe in Woodland, California, with one goal in mind: to determine the exact age of what may be the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/02/2024 - 06:00
05/02/2024 - 05:55
Rivers Trust is asking citizen scientists to record observations of local waterways on free app
People in Britain and Ireland are being asked to monitor their local rivers for pollution so a leading water charity can measure the scale of the sewage crisis.
The Rivers Trust is this week launching the Big River Watch, asking people to record observations of their local rivers on a free app. The results will be made available through an interactive dashboard, and will help the organisation, as well as individuals and communities who can all access the data, to take action to improve rivers.
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05/02/2024 - 05:00
Experts say only ‘handful of plants’ operating with the dirtiest fuel will likely survive, and only Trump and lawsuits could save them
New climate rules imposed by Joe Biden’s administration requiring huge cuts in carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants will accelerate the decline of an industry that until recently provided most of America’s power, experts say, potentially even dealing a death blow to coal in the US.
Coal, once the backbone of the US economy and feted by Donald Trump as he rose to the presidency, is being driven out of the power sector by cheaper renewables and gas and now faces an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation, finalized last week, that demands all coal plants not retiring by 2039 to slash their carbon emissions 90% within the coming decade.
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05/02/2024 - 00:00
Viruses that cause mild sniffles in humans are devastating populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. In some ape communities, it’s a bigger killer than habitat loss or poaching
There was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda’s Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die.
Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, but normally, the bodies of chimps are found long after decomposition has set in, if at all. So when Tony Goldberg, a US wildlife epidemiologist visiting Kibale, got word that an adult female named Stella had been found freshly dead, he knew this was a rare opportunity to look for an answer.
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05/02/2024 - 00:00
Use of enclosed combustors leaves regulators heavily reliant on oil and gas companies’ own flaring data
Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed.
Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.
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05/01/2024 - 18:39
Drop is a result of reduced land clearing and greater vegetation regrowth, but experts say land clearing in Queensland may be significantly underreported
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The Australian red meat industry has recorded a 78% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions since 2005 due to reduced rates of land clearing and increased forest regrowth, a report commissioned by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) has found.
The report, released on Thursday, found that net greenhouse gas emissions from the red meat industry were equivalent to 31m tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2021.
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05/01/2024 - 15:29
US Senate hearing reviewed report showing sector’s shift from climate denial to ‘deception, disinformation and doublespeak’
The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability committee that they said demonstrates the sector’s shift from explicit climate denial to a more sophisticated strategy of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak”.
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05/01/2024 - 13:16
Kenya Red Cross rescues more than 90 people from hotels and lodges as heavy rainfall continues
Scores of tourists have been evacuated by air from Kenya’s Maasai Mara national reserve after more than a dozen hotels, lodges and camps were flooded as heavy rains battered the country.
Tourist accommodation facilities were submerged after a river in the Maasai Mara broke its banks on Wednesday morning. The reserve, in south-west Kenya, is a popular tourist destination because it features the annual wildebeest migration from the Serengeti in Tanzania.
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04/30/2024 - 23:00
Trifluoroacetic acid found in drinking water and rain is thought to damage fertility and child development
Rapidly rising levels of TFA, a class of “forever chemical” thought to damage fertility and child development, are being found in drinking water, blood and rain, causing alarm among experts.
TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, is a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), a group of human-made chemicals used widely in consumer products that do not break down for thousands of years. Many of the substances have been linked to negative effects on human health.
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04/30/2024 - 16:00
This blog is now closed.
Faruqi v Hanson: Pauline Hanson told ‘white’ Derryn Hinch to go back to where he came from, court told
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As we flagged earlier, the treasurer Jim Chalmers will today announce foreign investment changes, with approvals to be made quicker and greater scrutiny to be placed on potential risks.
You can read all the details on this from Peter Hannam below:
Right now, we treat investments from right around the world more or less the same. We want to streamline it for the less-risky investments so we can devote much more time and energy and resources to screening the sorts of investments that we’re seeing in critical industries – like critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical data, and the like.
This is all about strengthening the foreign investment framework to make sure that investment is in the national interest. We want to maximise the right kind of investment, but we want to minimise risk and that’s what these changes I’ll announce today are all about.
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